


Costumes Optional, Reservations Required

by damalur



Category: Avengers (Comic), Marvel, Marvel 616, Ms. Marvel (Comics), Spider-Woman (Comic)
Genre: Community: heroines_fest, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damalur/pseuds/damalur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slice of superheroine life:  Carol and Jessica go on a date.  Shameless, shameless fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Costumes Optional, Reservations Required

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Carol Danvers/Jessica Drew, date night" at Heroines Fest. Set some nebulous period after Siege.

"You know," Jessica admits, "I didn't think we'd actually pull this off."

Carol wraps Jess's fingers more securely around her own arm. "Really?"

"Oh no. I was sure there'd be, you know, a supervillian parade down Broadway or another alien invasion. Maybe Tony would go nuts again. Something."

"Tony is nuts," Carol says.

"Probably," Jessica agrees. "Clint and Bobbi have been trying to go on a date for three weeks. The best they managed is twenty minutes at an ice cream parlor before a man showed up to rob the register."

"Well, if he was a muggle—"

Jessica grins against the wool of Carol's coat. "He wasn't."

"Oh," Carol says. "Are you laughing at me?"

"Yes," Jessica says, shameless.

" _Why_ are you laughing at me?"

"I can't believe you're still hung up on those books. You used to make me do the voices, remember?"

"Yeah," Carol says, and drops off into silence.

In one instant they've collided headlong with the topic they've been dancing around for months. Carol's about to open her mouth and drag it into daylight, and Jessica cannot deal with this. Not here, not tonight, so she opens her mouth and says, " _Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have._ "

Predictably, Carol bursts into laughter. Jessica pulls away a bit, so she can watch the lines of a face suited to some ancient, amazonian relief collapse into merriment. Carol is first and always her friend; Jessica hadn't assumed that she would want to resume their on-again, off-again flirtation in the aftermath of Osborn's defeat, but neither was she surprised when Carol asked her out. It's Carol, these past few months, who more often than not pulls Jessica out of her own head on the days she feels like the most screwed-over person on the face of the planet.

Now, walking through Central Park with her arm tucked through Carol's, Jessica doesn't feel in any sense screwed—although possibly that will change before the night is out. _Possibly_ ; it might be too soon to ask for anything more than a peck on the cheek at the end of the evening.

"Besides," Carol says, still through little spurts of giggles, "the night is young. There's plenty of time for the Brood to crash-land in Queens."

"Oh, don't even," Jessica says. "You're just jealous that I'm A-string now. I'm on Thor's team, thank you very much."

"Still weird?"

"A bit." Jess slides her hand down until their fingers tangle in Carol's pocket. "How's it feel for you, being in the Mansion again?"

"Still weird," Carol echoes. "Good. Nice to be on a team with Jessica Jones—you do not want to make that woman angry."

"Mmm. Did you and she ever...?"

"Ever what?" Carol says, blithely unaware, and then she must read the meaning off Jessica's face. "Oh no! No, god no. She's a friend, that's all."

"We're friends," Jessica points out.

"Jess is more like"—Carol makes a face—"like a slightly younger sister. Don't ever tell her I said that."

Jessica smirks. "Cross my heart."

"Maybe _I_ should be jealous of how well you two get along."

"Are we far enough along to be jealous now?"

"Yes," Carol says, and something about the unequivocal way she says it warms Jessica better than even Carol's heat pressed against her side.

"So who do I have to be jealous of?"

Carol shrugs. "No one."

"Uh-huh."

"No, really. I went on a couple of dates, flirted with Simon. And..."

"Yes?"

Carol's cheeks redden. "Spider-Man."

"...I honestly don't know what to say to that," Jessica confesses. "Except that possibly you have a type."

"It never went anywhere."

"He seems different," Jessica says, because their teammates are a safer topic than the lives and loves of Carol Danvers. Half the world is in love with Carol, and she doesn't seem to know it. Carol loves like a star: in wildly varying stages, dim and then bright and then dying, almost blinded by her own luminosity.

"We all do," Carol says.

"Maybe."

And then Carol says the thing Jessica's been dreading: "I should have known."

"Carol—"

"No," Carol says. "And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make this about me, but Jess, _I should have known_. I can't believe I couldn't tell that you'd been replaced by—"

"Carol, stop."

"I should have paid better attention—"

"Carol," Jessica repeats, " _stop_. There's no way you could have realized."

"Still," Carol says. "I'm sorry."

Maybe Jess needed to hear it as much as Carol needed to say it, because something in her chest loosens. "It wasn't your fault," she says, "but thank you."

"You're welcome," Carol says, and this time the silence they fall into is comfortable, easy with almost a decade's weight of friendship. They pass couples, groups of teenagers, even a few families, until Carol leads them to a look-out point over the Lake. Moonlight dims the colors of the fall trees and silvers the water; Jessica sighs and lays her head on Carol's shoulder again.

"Dinner was good?" Carol asks.

"Dinner was good."

"Was this a good first date?"

"It isn't really our first date," Jessica says, even though part of her likes knowing that Carol was anxious about tonight.

"It's our new first date," Carol says. "Everyone else is starting fresh, so we might as well jump on the wagon."

"Then it was an excellent new first date," Jessica decides.

She feels Carol smile against her hair. "Walk you home?"

"Actually," Jessica says, "I think I'd rather fly."


End file.
